The 2011 Shonky Awards

06.Peachy Pink

Shonky for Spinning out of control briefs goes to...

Peachy Pink

Infused with green tea, peaches and caffeine, wearing Peachy Pink shapewear eight hours a day for 21 days is claimed to micro-massage the. skin, helping you reduce cellulite and lose inches! Peachy Pink claims to be “the ONLY clinically proven anti cellulite shapewear on the market”.

Clinically proven, eh? Well, now that changes things. It was starting to sound a little too good to be true. So which well-respected, independent laboratory did these tests? Turns out it was “Spincontrol Laboratories” – which naturally sent our Shonky radar into meltdown mode.

We checked the lab’s website, which proudly proclaims: “2 doses of accuracy, 1 dose of creativity and a touch of audacity… Since its creation, our team of researchers works with the intention to offer you more and more creative techniques to prove your marketing claims.”

Maybe it’s a case of lost in translation, but it seems that whatever you want to claim, they’ll prove it… somehow. Unsurprisingly, the research results haven’t been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

We’re prepared to concede that wearing a large tourniquet will reduce how big you look at the time – hopefully without seriously cutting blood flow or making you look like an exploding sausage. And, thanks to the redistribution of interstitial fluids, you might temporarily look slightly thinner when they come off – think tight-sock syndrome.

Caffeine and green tea are often used in weight loss supplements, and may have a metabolic or diuretic effect, but evidence for weight loss is inconclusive, and there’s none whatsoever for peaches. Assuming (very generously) there’s plenty of caffeine available and maximum possible skin absorption occurs, we calculated you’d get about 70mg per day, or about two cups of green tea, from the shorts. So why not drink the tea? It will be quite a bit cheaper – and a lot more plausible.